Arts for Transit and Urban Design

Delancey Street-Essex Street

Ming Fay

Shad Crossing, Delancey Orchard, 2004

Glass mosaics on platform and mezzanine walls

Ming Fay brings to the station the liveliness of the thriving marketplace overhead in this storied Lower East Side neighborhood. The artist extensively researched the neighborhood's history, and created by watercolor sketches that were transformed into glass mosaic murals by craftsmen. The images of Shad Crossing celebrate the return of the once abundant fish to New York and water as a metaphor for "crossing." Delancey Orchard is the mural on the Manhattan-bound platform, inspired by the prominent DeLancey family's eighteenth century farm, which stretched from the East River to the Hudson River. The farm's cherry orchard was located where Orchard Street stands and is memorialized with radiant cherry trees on the Brooklyn-bound platform.